Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] MXE: How to build a self-sufficient DLL that statically includes other libraries?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 24/03/15 12:51, Matthias Geier wrote:
> [...]
> This makes a lot of sense in general, but I have a specific case where
> I would like to mix static and shared libraries.
> I would like to create a DLL for libsndfile, which should statically
> include all dependencies (libFLAC, libogg, libvorbis, ...).

Build against a static MXE, but outside of MXE. That's how I create my 
self-containted  :-)

That means, build everything libsndfile needs in MXE. Statically. But 
*don't* build libsndfile itself. Then, build it outside of MXE with 
something like the below. It also applies the MXE-specific patch and 
rebuilds the configure script for that patch to take effect.

(I assume here that you installed MXE in ~/opt/mxe; adjust the path 
below according to your MXE directory.)


  cd /tmp
  tar xf libsndfile-1.0.25.tar.gz
  cd libsndfile-1.0.25
  patch -p1 < ~/opt/mxe/src/libsndfile-1-fixes.patch
  autoreconf -fi -IM4
  ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32.static --enable-shared 
--disable-static --disable-sqlite --disable-octave --disable-alsa
  make -j4


This will produce a dll somewhere. Find it with:


  find . -iname "*.dll"


That dll should contain everything it needs to run on its own.

The above assumes you're on latest git master of MXE. For the old 
"stable" MXE, you need to adjust the --host accordingly.

Note though: this method can be problematic with C++ exception handling, 
since each DLL you produce contains a static copy of libgcc. If you have 
several DLLs that are built that way, then each one contains its own 
libgcc. The result of that is that exceptions might not propagate 
correctly. I think this only applies when the DLL is used by an *.exe or 
another dll that is written in C++, but I'm not sure.